DAKAR, Senegal - Conservationists on Thursday announced the rare birth of a mountain gorilla in Congo, but warned the threat of extinction remained with nearly 10 percent of the animals' population there wiped out this year alone.
The gorilla was born Tuesday in eastern Congo's Virunga National Park, said Samantha Newport of the conservation support group, WildlifeDirect.
"It's just incredibly positive," Newport said by telephone from Congo. "The fact that this baby was born was a great piece of news after a few difficult weeks."
Nine mountain gorillas have been killed in the park since January, five of them in July. Newport said those deaths amounted to the worst bloodshed to hit the park's 100-strong gorilla population in decades.
Only about 700 mountain gorillas are believed to remain in the world. About 380 live in the Virunga Volcanoes Conservation Area, which straddles the borders of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda. The other 320 live in Uganda's Bwindi Impenetrable Forest.
In a statement, WildlifeDirect called Tuesday's birth "a key step toward the survival of this critically endangered species."
"The mountain gorillas must be protected or Congo will end up with absolutely none," Newport said.
Virunga National Park is located in a lawless swathe of eastern Congo that the country's government has struggled to bring under control for years. Established in 1925 as Africa's first national park, it was classified as a U.N. World Heritage Site in 1979.
The 1994 Rwandan genocide saw millions of refugees spill across the border into Congo, marking the beginning of an era of unrest and sporadic clashes between militias and myriad rebel groups that continues today. With little government control, the park has been ravaged by poachers and deforestation.
About 100 rangers working in the park have been killed over the past decade by armed groups and poachers, and the park's remaining hippos are also on the verge of extinction.
Congo held its first democratic elections in more than four decades last year, and is still coping with the effects of a 1998-2002 war that drew in the armies of more than half a dozen African nations.
